The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

One Half of a Half-Baked Plan

Previously: "Scheming Big" 

Caleb is right to call out Cindy Vredenburg and Kelsey Blankenship as two of the people at school who need to be "fixed" with a body-swap. "Oh, they're on the list," you assure him. "But I think we should start with Steve—"

"How come?" he interrupts. "Also, hold it." He raises a finger. "Explain to me from the start exactly what you want to do."

"Feh! I told you! We swap people around. The dicks and the cunts at the school get replaced with people who, you know, aren't dicks and cunts. Like I swapped with Chelsea. Don't give me that look!"

"How many of these swaps are you planning to make?"

"Oh, um, well, at least three. Steve and Kelsey and Cindy. But also, we should do something about the Molester, don't you think? And, um—"

"And how many people are you planning to bring into this? Will, how many people are you planning to tell about these masks and what they can do?"

You blink. Because, in fact, it hadn't occurred to you that you'd have to tell anyone anything.

You cross your arms as Caleb starts ticking off reasons it would be dangerous to tell anyone else—"Except, like, maybe one or two people that we really trust"—about the masks. But you're only half listening, and instead are trying to reassure yourself that you wouldn't even have to tell anyone.

You finally interrupt him to make your argument. "Do we even have to tell anyone about this stuff? Can't we just, you know, make the switches?"

His jaw drops. "What?"

"Like we did with me and Gordon. Then with me and Dane. And me and Chelsea. We just do a switch without telling either of them what's going on."

"But you knew what was going on."

"So in this case we don't tell either of them. We just switch, like, um, someone and Kelsey—"

"Who?" Caleb's eyebrows rise so high they almost meet his hairline. "Who are you going to—?"

"I don't know! Yet! Someone!"

"Well, you sure as fuck better figure out—"

"I will! But we'll just grab both of them, Kelsey and this other person, and we switch them. And then—"

"Yeah, then what? Just let them do their new thing?"

You make a face at him. "Well, no."

"Because how are they supposed to follow your brilliant plan if they don't know what the plan is?"

"I was getting to that! We do the switch, and Kelsey fucks right off in her new body, but we, you and me, we pull the new Kelsey aside, and we explain—"

"About the masks?"

"No. We don't explain how we did it, we just explain that we did it. And that we did it for a purpose, and what the purpose is. That they're the new Kelsey and they need to not be so much of a scrunt."

Caleb looks less convinced than ever. "And they'll just do that."

"We tell them— Look, they're gonna want to stay on as Kelsey—"

"You sure about that?"

"Why wouldn't they? That rich bitch. They're gonna want her car and house and clothes and everything. And if they don't do what we say, if they don't agree to the plan, we tell them we'll just switch them back and find someone else to give Kelsey's stuff to!"

Caleb still looks skeptical. "Gonna have to be a real special kind of person to go along with it."

"We'll figure it out. But we need to start with Steve—"

"How come?"

Because he kicked me out of the loft and if that gets around it'll kill a bunch of my cred. But aloud you say, "Because he's one of the biggest dicks in the school. And because if we get him, we get the loft—the fuck room, you know—and that's the perfect place to pull off these body heists."

"Doesn't Chelsea have a key to the loft?"

"Yes," you lie. "But we don't want Steve barging in. Besides, we'll need some muscle for some of the switches we need to make."

Caleb glances over his shoulder, and you follow his glance over to a side table, where the grimoire is lying open. "Yeah, we could use some muscle," he muses. Then he turns back to you. "What happens to Steve?"

"You mean the real guy? Well, if you and him switch, then he winds up—"

"Yeah, he winds up being me. But he doesn't know anything about me. Like, about who I am, or my life, or anything."

"I guess not. So?"

"So he'll fuck up my life."

"Well, Gordon doesn't know anything about my life, and he's stuck being me now."

"And look how he's fucked it up. And look how Dane fucked up Gordon's life and you fucked up Dane's life, and—"

"Wait, Gordon is fucking up my life? What's he doing? No, wait, never mind!" You stop Caleb from answering with an upraised palm. "I don't give a shit any more. I'm Chelsea now, so I don't care about my old meat bag."

"Well, I might care about mine."

"Why? If it's not going to be yours anymore."

Caleb bites his lip, and it's a long moment before he replies. "Because," he says when he speaks again, "it's not just my life that could get fucked up. With you it's different, you've got a mom and and a dad, and they're all doing okay. But it's just me and my mom, and if whoever takes over for me fucks things up, well—"

"Oh. Okay." You find yourself swallowing with sympathy. "I didn't think of that."

"Yeah, I think I should stay where I am. In fact, that's a pretty good reason not do any of this. Because if you stick a bastard like Patterson in where he doesn't know what to do, he could fuck up lots of people without even meaning to."

* * * * *

You and Caleb spend a lot more time talking about it, but neither of you can get the other to budge. You suggest giving both people in the body-swap the memories of the other, like you've got Chelsea's, so they can both adapt. Caleb admits that will work, but points out that you can't give his memories to someone like Steve, or else he'll know all about the masks, and how they work, and everything else that's going on. So he says he won't switch with anyone, but you stubbornly insist on your plan, and for making Patterson your first victim. "And how are you going to pull off a switch?" Caleb demands.

"I'll think of something," you snarl, for all this arguing has made you peevish. "You just be ready to help!"

At home, you're silent and sulky all through dinner, and afterward you ignore both your homework and your social media as you chew over the problem you've set yourself. It's still a problem when you wake the next morning, but sleep has clarified your thinking. You and Steve don't like each other, but it shouldn't be too hard to get him alone someplace where you can jump him. All you have to do is tell him you want to talk about Gordon.

You also need to figure out who to swap in for Steve if not Caleb. As you dress—in tight shorts that show off your thighs, and a loose, cool sleeveless top; the weather is calling for unseasonably warm temperatures today—you let your imagination play over various candidates.

Naturally, it reaches first for people you know. Keith Tilley is of course the first guy you consider for the role. You and he and Caleb traditionally make up a kind of three-man gang of losers and victims, and in the back of your mind you've been feeling a little guilty about leaving him out of the shenanigans that you and Caleb have got caught up in. But it's been complicated enough without him, and there might be a lot of drama if, at this late date, you revealed to him what you and Caleb have been getting up to without him.

The other obvious candidate is Carson Ioeger, who has made it his special mission for the last year or so to torment the school's jocks, particularly the basketball squad, and especially Gordon and Steve and Seth Javits. Patterson would be justly punished if he got swapped into the body of a lanky, funny-looking dork like Carson, and Carson would almost certainly be keen to help you out with your plan. But he'd be hard to manage, you sense, because he's got nerd-alpha tendencies of his own; and if he brought his best friend James Lamont in on the scheme, the two of them would probably try taking the whole thing over from you.

So you let your imagination wander farther afield.

Still, it's a short chain of associations that takes you from one smart nerd, like Carson, to another: Philip Fairfax, the guy you briefly tried setting Eva up with. He's no friend of yours (or of Chelsea's, naturally), and you know of him more than you know him. But he doesn't seem like a very strong personality, and you feel confident that you could manage him from behind Chelsea's face.

You're still sunk deeply in your thoughts—pulling up names and just as quickly discarding them—when you arrive at school. That's when you add another wild possibility to your list: Stephanie Wyatt, who is loping along toward the gym, her head bent over her cell phone, as you get out of your car. You pause to regard her. Stephanie is on the girls' basketball squad, and is frighteningly intense about it. She might be too hard to manage if you tried managing her. But the girls' team resents the boys' team and all the attention they receive, so she might like the switch, if only as a kind of revenge against Steve.

Otherwise, you sense, you will have to look down in the lower classes—on the JV basketball squad, maybe—for candidates.

Next: "Possible Boyfriends for Me and Thee" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"